Source :- THE AGE NEWS
San Francisco: The noise from back home has reached Camp Socceroo, but it has failed to penetrate the team’s protective bubble and bounced away to safety.
Inside the bubble, players and staff are focusing only on the bright side of their World Cup campaign – critics be damned.
After two games, Australia have three points, which is about where most people thought they would be now, if not slightly ahead of expectations. According to data analysts Opta, Australia are a 93.22 per cent chance of reaching the knockout phase ahead of their final Group D match against Paraguay on Friday (12pm AEST) in Santa Clara. Which Socceroos fan doesn’t like those odds?
Of the four halves of football played thus far, Socceroos assistant coach Mile Jedinak argues that three of them have been pretty good, and only one – the first half against the United States – fell short of expectations.
“The disappointment is one half of football,” said Jedinak, the 2015 Asian Cup-winning captain who also led the team at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
“You start from that point and you reinforce that message with the boys. That’s exactly how it’s been framed for them. What’s important is that they understand that. They know where and how we could have [better] dealt with the first half.”
In Australia, the conversation is different, and largely centred on to what extent coach Tony Popovic’s selections were to blame for the 2-0 loss to the US.
But there was no sense from Jedinak that the Socceroos needed to reinvent themselves. To the coaching group, Australia’s second-half display against the US showed how the existing plan could work if executed correctly.
“Who’s the pundits talking, then? Talk to me. Tell me,” Jedinak joked with a reporter who flagged the reaction to the result against America, and the dismay at Popovic’s decision to leave Nestory Irankunda and Connor Metcalfe on the bench.
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. We know that. You guys are entitled to your opinion. That’s absolutely fine. What you can’t do sometimes is you’re never going to make everybody happy. We understand that.
“But … we do have access to the players all the time. Decisions have to be taken. It’s never easy. I think what’s clear is how you got to that decision, what the conversation was around it. You guys aren’t privy to that, and you won’t be privy to that because it has to stay within us.
“We’re clear in our mind of what we need to do and how we need to approach the game or any situation for that matter. We try and execute it as best as we can.”
Players had the day off training on Sunday (local time) and were free to do as they pleased. Some relaxed at the team’s plush hotel in Berkeley, others went off and explored San Francisco and the broader Bay Area.
They were already looking back at Seattle as an experience they could learn from, if not be slightly proud of, because of the way they bounced back in the second half, something Jedinak said was totally down to them, not the coaches. Now it is about playing like that for longer, rather than worrying about what went wrong before then.
“One half of football was transformed into the second half,” Jedinak said. “They’ve gone and done it themselves. What that is is maybe a little bit more belief.
“How does that come about? It’s them actioning what’s been asked of them. They deserve a tremendous amount of credit for that. You see the characters, you see the people stand up. There’ll be a lot that they will take from that. I think they should, because they got through that as a group. Everyone stuck with each other. That’s what you need in those moments, and that’s what you’re going to need again on Thursday night [local time].”
But how much of that second half against the US was down to the opposition’s decision to sit back and protect their two-goal lead, and how much was down to what the Socceroos did?
Again, for Jedinak, the glass is half full.
“I think you make what you want,” Jedinak said.
“From our perspective, it’s us taking the game to them, imposing our own game on them and playing with that bit more belief and understanding of what was required in those moments.
“More importantly, I think executing against a well-drilled, well-organised, intense US opponent … the fact that the boys did that and were able to stress them at times, for us, was a positive.”
Meanwhile, Jedinak offered no update on the status of veteran Mathew Leckie, who suffered a suspected hamstring injury in the second half against the US, other than to say he was undergoing further testing.
